Month: March 2024
Tim Ebel’s visit with an ear, nose and throat specialist at an Ohio clinic last October came to $348. At the same time, he got a second bill for $645. The hospital system that owns the Avon, Ohio, clinic had charged him separately for use of the office where he met his physician. It is ...
State caps on insulin costs lowered privately insured patients’ out-of-pocket spending, but they didn’t appear to increase insulin use, according to a new Annals of Internal Medicine study. Why it matters: The research suggests increasingly popular insulin caps alone aren’t enough to improve insulin uptake among patients with diabetes in commercial insurance. At least half of states in recent years ...
Nearly three quarters of employees would leave their jobs for better family benefits.
The HHS rule, which mandates that health insurers not count copay assistance toward out-of-pocket costs, was struck down last fall, however, it is backfiring on patients with chronic diseases that need expensive drugs.
More than 100 provider organizations want the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to take a tougher stance on Medicare Advantage (MA) plans’ practices following an industry survey estimating billions per year are spent fighting claims denials. Providers spent nearly $20 billion in 2022 pursuing delays and denials across all payer types, yet those ...
A popular weight-loss strategy that limits the hours during which calories can be consumed might nearly double a person’s long-term risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, new research finds, especially among people with underlying cardiovascular disease or cancer. But questions remain about just how time-restricted eating, which limits calorie consumption to part of the day, ...
The federal process for resolving billing disputes for out-of-network care has to date yielded payouts well above what Medicare and most in-network private insurers would pay providers, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis provided first to Axios. Why it matters: That could lead to downstream effects like higher premiums — quite the opposite of what Congress intended ...
President Joe Biden made health care affordability a centerpiece of Thursday evening's address, announcing he is calling on Congress to expand the $2,000 out-of-pocket Medicare prescription cap to all private insurance.
A troublesome 2 in 3 employees would change their jobs for better benefits, and 46% of workers are actively considering a job change in 2024.
Sarah Feldman, 35, received the first ominous letters from Mount Sinai Medical last November. The New York hospital system warned it was having trouble negotiating a pricing agreement with UnitedHealthcare, which includes Oxford Health Plans, Feldman’s insurer. “We are working in good faith with Oxford to reach a new fair agreement,” the letter said, continuing ...